we're dealing with a half meter tick layer of pine drawee needles that have accumulated over several years both a state of emergency has been called in seven russian regions we've seen over forty people killed so far in these and these fires across the country more than three hundred injured and two thousand homes approximately of being destroyed by the fire is plenty being done by the government actually the house just behind me i was talking to some locals it actually caught fire on thursday and just the ground all around me is still smoldering it's still very very hot a pro apparently the police were telling me that the peach fires that here have gone ten meters underground are still burning that well for those people that have lost their homes and and vast amount of cases all of their belongings and everything blood in me approaching the prime minister has pledged one hundred thousand dollars to each of those people who tonight who had that who had that happen to them and they are expecting to see that money next week now also there's

been a lot of shelters temperature out is need to be set up for people who have lost their homes they've also lost many of them a lot of their belongings and this being aid put forward to make sure that people have clothes water the basic needs of life for those that have suffered at they say to this tragedy president yet if is also praised the the response of the the me a quarter of a million people in russia who have been trying to put the spy is out but not only here in russia he's also saying to the international community of russia's neighbors we've also chipped in with help to try and tackle these places across the country. of course with thankful for all the aid our partners have all food we appreciate this especially taking into account because of cool situation we currently in. the smoke which coming off the east of these fires is causing a lot of problems you have to see behind me it's very very thick it makes breathing incredibly difficult and it's. we vary so on your eyes but this three wins

a round in the moscow region of blowing the smoke further up to the note to the north from where i am about one hundred kilometers south of the city the brilliant north into mosco itself and causing terrible problems with smoke there from all that we can now hear across to natalia nova scotia who's in the center of the city there have been quite a few strong flows a wind storming through mosco today and everyone hoped that they would bring rain but they only brought more smoke smoke from outside the city now the nights are the worst by about meat day part of the smoke over mosco dissolves but the more in the mornings the visibility in the cities a very close to zero but this problem is of course twofold first of all is the fresh air right now air in moscow is very heavy it's very and the smoke is so thick that sometimes it actually burns your eyes and ecologists are saying that there a level of air pollution in moscow right now is seven the times of its usual figure

and also doctors are saying if you take a walk around moscow for just a couple of hours it will be equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes some people prefer to wear masks to protect themselves from this poison a small there's also problems with buying ery conditioners in the city because there's a huge shortage of them and if you can buy one then you will probably be the double or even the triple amount of money for it because some people who sell them is simply trying to make money on other people's misery and doctors are recommending to stay inside stay indoors to spend as little time as possible outside especially close to those blazes so the other side of this problem is that those who are staying inside and trying to breathe fresh air for air conditioning those are the key in the number of cases of cold moscow it's have been freed praying for a heavy rain to fall down on the city but we've been promised so far only short rains in some parts of it have seen noun so far however. and weather forecasts

saying that the temperature a moscow is going to increase even further and reach a point over forty degrees so if you are in moscow right now here it's feels like you've been put into a novel where someone has just burned it beat up. nicely put. over there in the center of the russian capital and a bit earlier peter all of a reporting for the moscow region well those wildfires raging across russia are making headlines around the world of course and the handling of the disaster is of prime concern for the country's leaders but that pressing issue didn't seem to be on the minds of journalists when they were loaded chris dmitri madrid of earlier their war interested in what's going to happen in the presidential elections in twenty twelve covering that story today. even though sochi is a nice place for spending summer vacations as you can see there is a small here like in the russian capital and luckily there are no forest fires but it seems that for president medvedev it's more of a work trip apart from reading books from the i pad planning fishing trips and

doing yoga exercises his keeping himself busy as usual he's holding a series of meetings here visiting the limbic venues and he's made several important political announcements and so many admitted of his words came as a surprise when he's shared with journalists his thoughts on the upcoming presidential election in two thousand and twelve although he said he wouldn't do like to see a clash between powerful figures with similar aims he said he doesn't know who will run here's the quote it may be made of it if it may be putin it may be somebody else and commenting on his relations with putin medvedev said that on one hand nothing's changed between them but on the other hand there are serious changes he added that the presidency transformed him and a now these relations evolved into the relations of the current president with the former president unquote know both need to be made very different what the near putin are expected to work and spend their holidays here in sochi throughout august also the meet even go fishing

together of course if forest fires in central russia should be contained in the coming weeks but in any case we may expect some new developments when it comes to politics and the upcoming election and we will certainly keep you updated as you would expect a correspondent political analyst for the novice state news agency dmitri babich stoled us that my vantage comments about the presidential election come as no surprise. a lot of political experts believe they have gentlemen very different called for a serious competition from the pericope politicians that we have now in russia will have pretty limited electorates basically. just repeated what the legislation said about presidential elections so it was a nice way to avoid given a direct response but it's a slight change from what we have been hearing during the last two years because in the last two years was putin and medvedev were basically mostly talking about

themselves with the person that are not important here indeed they are not important what is important is to have a predictable president sound one who would not buy into your nice wards that we hear from the west or from the east and who would be realistic about that i must tell you without almost all russian politicians now are very realistic sometimes there are two reduced. to be true babbage israeli arabs have long said they're treated as second class citizens in their own country but now civil rights groups claim the current government of the jewish state's increasingly passing racist laws they say new legislation doesn't just discriminate against palestinians but all minorities within the country. they're just back from touring the states with a protest music found sympathetic ears among jews and arabs they go by the name of dam or blood and they're the first arab israeli hip hop group to rap in arabic hebrew and english their lyrics are bold and demand better treatment for arab

israelis who they say are treated as second class citizens lieberman is saying. they want to take the out of them for their loud and people elected them so it's not the government. but government is the face of the people like what started first i don't know but this is the situation every serious like the elected gangsters and civil rights groups agree they say it's official the current israeli government is the most racist in israel's history. proposals for laws studied them and so on two hundred ninety six instances of races are not just against arabs there's also a significant rise in racism against other ethnic groups russians ethiopians and eastern jew i believe that israel is a racist country if this trend continues its bills disaster for the state of israel already at least twenty one bills that arab citizens insist just communicate

against them have been passed the most recent prospective citizens now have to swear allegiance to a jewish and democratic state but changing the whole discourse in israel now into one in which the assumption is that palestinians are not loyal they have should have no rights they have to prove their loyalty and so this is very much part of that whole so same kind of move the first victims of this this legislative drive will be the palestinian parliament members means you are because one of them she's one of fourteen arab parliamentary members out of one hundred twenty she says it's a daily struggle for arabs to be treated equally even the most liberal israeli parties often struggle to support them in the first part. it is to keep the position in the coalition government it think this is the house. in this little idea that this government has the vision not just for pieces of this so that this shit but also a vision of peace with its own citizens but in its defense the same israeli cabinet

approved the largest economic development plan for arabs this industrial park is the brainchild of stephan vet a jewish israeli millionaire who's joined hands with shockey khatib the former mayor of the largest arab city in israel nazareth but at the moment the arabs are not participating in industry in israel they have stayed in the professions we want to bring arabs into the circle of industry and my vision is that five years from now there will be twenty to twenty five production factories here but that vision is being tested because although parliamentarians still need to vote on the proposed amendments to the citizenship law another ball that has already been passed includes threatening to cut off funding to institutions that support the palestinian version of the one nine hundred forty eight war and now the ball criminalizes and denying israel's right to be called a jewish state which is why they'll be no shortage of lyrics any time soon and the

music will wrap on policy r.t. israel. gravely ill children in russia's regions like the church and republican have been thrown a lifeline after local facilities there were upgraded previously receiving treatment for serious conditions like kidney disease meant travelling to moscow and that was something many families just couldn't hope to afford now though new equipment means white or medical care is within reach. it's been a year since her adopted baby girl died but lady said she still mourning she is always looking at the pictures of her girl when she was in hospital but all in memory she has no she was more than a child she was inane charm of the so we think about her all the time my mom still crying. little note certainly hard to forget such a challenge seven months old marshall was brought to this hospital with acute kidney failure the doctors did their best to save the girl but with the special

equipment to purify the plant there was no hope it was a shame to see a child who couldn't help. has been working at the hospital for three years during that time ten children have died from acute kidney disease. this new equipment was installed four months ago to dock to see it will support due suffering from renal failure until the moment they'll be able to find a donor kidney the last patient was treated here for two months before going to more school for a transplant and there was i don't think it matters that these machines are not being used right now what really matters is that they really do accept patients and help them at least a little bit. the children's hospital in the center of the chechen capital has eleven departments which makes it one of the biggest in the north caucasus people from all over the region come here for medical care but the center for the treatment of kidney problems makes it special children are born here if they had

a kidney problem and in the past they're all. over to go to moscow that's providing their relatives had enough money but the russian government determination to decentralize specially here this unit is on their doorstep. they either visit or are seen in grozny. quarter past midnight here in moscow let me tell you first international news in brief protesters in poland have saved a temporary cross to the late president from being moved from outside warsaw the presidential palace the wooden cross was placed there after the small and plane crash that killed lech kaczynski and ninety five others present a leg and said he didn't want the religious symbol outside a government building but officials eventually relented saying the cross should become part of a political game. u.n. surged israel and lebanon to show restraint after a border skirmish escalated into violence killing at least four it prompted fears of a repeat of the bloody war between the two countries in two thousand and six chooses

clashes began with lebanese and israeli soldiers exchanging fire fighting then fled into israeli tank helicopter and artillery strikes. warns it will intervene if israeli troops ever attack lebanese forces again. there's been a surge of violence in iraq a car bombs ripped through an outdoor market in the southern mainly shiite city you could killing at least fifteen and wounding sixty and in the capital suspected al-qaeda militants have shot dead five iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint in the west of baghdad an iraqi soldier and a policeman were also killed in separate attacks in the city. thousands of protesters in indian administered kashmir ignored police warnings they'd be shot if they continue to defy around the clock curfew as a result two people being killed and one wounded in today's demonstrations against indian rule news of the casualties brought more activists on to the streets pelting police offices and vehicles with rocks over forty people have died in weeks of

addressed updating on the pakistan story the awful flooding well now the floodwaters surging into the country's heartland the devastating mountainous northwest hundreds have been left homeless in atlanta to charlotte and they were just thing with police to get food handouts in an effort to try to control the crowd police officers beat some of those people away with sticks the floods have claimed at least fifteen hundred lives and one hundred thousand people are now at risk of disease. to run says remarks by a u.s. admiral that washington will use force to stop iran getting nuclear weapons will only end in defeat the islamic state says america will suffer the same failures as in iraq and afghanistan this comes just a day after president mahmoud ahmadinejad's challenge barack obama to a televised debate about the world's problems and penco from the british american security information council spoke to me and she said the u.s. will only attack if iran fails to halt its nuclear program. i think the whole point

of what i. said over the weekend was to tell the iranians that actually the americans mean business otherwise i think if you look at the timeline we're not talking about any kind of military action any time soon i mean you have to look at how long is it going to take to actually get to the threshold of having a deliverable nuclear weapon and we're actually talking anything between three to five years so the talk of the military action i think is really aimed at taking up the pressure on the iranians to to come to the negotiating table is a time when the americans are really tightening the screws with sanctions on iran anything that president obama says this point has to be viewed through the prism of the elections the mid-term elections that are coming up in so in the case of iraq he's able to point to something which he will say is positive look i'm keeping my

my election campaign promises because this this was one of his promises don't forget that fifty thousand american troops actually will remain in iraq. actually was one of the people who voted against the iraq war in the first place and it's pretty popular with the with the democratic party as as is the afghan conflict this war has to be unwinnable and the country is going to lose against the the afghans on their own soil it seems to me and of course in europe the public opinion is running very strongly against the walls of just pulling out now i think that the administration has kind of drawn a line in the sand in two thousand and eleven we are going to have to see some kind of steady drawdown even though. of course the date is a deadline big. you've got on the on the conservative side of the congress you've

got people like senator john mccain saying that the last thing. is to let the taliban planning to leave on a date certain. but russia says it's important to keep dialogue open between the west for more on tensions over iran's nuclear program spoke to the russian m.p. seven back to set off that interview coming up just ahead.

thank you very much simone for your time but what a good day thanks for inviting me the you and your ass adopted new science of lateral sanctions targeting iran's foreign trade banks and insurance companies and an interceptor russia has expressed its stronger position what moved you think. could satisfy russia. firstly to support the list of sanctions approved by the u.n. and secondly for iran to have a more transparent nuclear program of course russia definitely doesn't want to run to have nuclear weapons objective lee there isn't enough transparency in many aspects on their part of this was one of the reasons that russia supported u.n. sanctions but they expanded the sanctions prohibiting supplies of fuels and lubricants to iran i believe it was a wrong move in relation to our country great britain and usa really year they'll start withdrawing their troops from afghanistan despite almost there. reports of

attacks there an increasing number of victims in this country how do you think it's because eyes government able to control the situation without foreign support or is because of the modern it's a couple of years of it's obvious that cause i's administration is a puppet government managed by occupation forces this administration is corrupted and isn't supported by the local population as for the withdrawal two dates were sent twenty eleven and the end of twenty fourteen initially those dates were determined after president obama's so-called afghan strategic policy was announced it included several points such as increasing the presence of u.s. armed forces such as the u.k. in afghanistan implementing programs for winning members of taliban over to their side and building up afghan forces we see today however that these programs aren't working how does the situation in afghanistan in fact stability in which and in central asia. there are two factors which strongly affect the situation in the

region drug trafficking in terrorism in october two thousand and nine the united nation states in a very professional and comprehensive report absolutely clearly that at the time u.s. troops went to afghanistan no drugs were cultivated in the taliban controlled areas and absolute record in this respect eight thousand two hundred tons was set in two thousand and seven after the u.s. troops had rived in afghanistan no comment here terrorism well before the u.s. troops came to afghanistan we had absolutely no trustworthy information about the taliban participation in raids in the territories of central asian states nic august done in one thousand nine hundred nine and in spec is started in two thousand in july and august on another central asian country was hit by massive ethnic clashes with hundred stat is there any danger that we could could see a repeat. so. put the political you know back in april i warned about this kind of

scenario for southern coast first of all the situation in southern kyrgyzstan had been intensively destabilized second into ethnic tensions are also high in that region the southern regions of open to that part of. which borders on afghanistan and that border is also open so those who want to stage provocations and heat up the situation can easily attract militants of all hues so there will all preconditions for the outbreak of violence but the world community was pretty much passive now we're talking about a death toll of two thousand and huge number of injured simply percent of all sharon says have been destroyed the worst is that the preconditions for further tension remain but does days ago thousands of secret pentagon documents were leaked to the public why it happened to think. obviously there are political groups who raise the question of the ineffectiveness of us troops intelligence and other

services in afghanistan and right now they deliberately dwelling on the war in afghanistan in detail to explain that it's useless they've spent over four hundred billion dollars one american soldier costs one million dollars a year so they spend one hundred billion dollars directly on soldiers apart from other expenses which are high as well and the result is actually nothing that probably the secretary says. if so why hasn't he been captured or killed. bin laden he's a person who knows a lot he closely worked together with the cia with saudi arabian intelligence he was acquainted with the head of saudi arabian intelligence that you might be so that somebody is interested in his presence in a certain place americans say that they fight against al qaeda in pakistan and afghanistan but the u.n. reports that in afghanistan there are less. than three hundred al qaeda members in

comparison with the one hundred fifty four thousand armed u.s. personnel and according to our information they are no more than one hundred people perhaps even less if you understand what this means when there are one hundred or three hundred terrorists against the one hundred fifty four thousand army but the symbol should remain otherwise there is a question what are they doing that. let's now turn to another part of the planet north korea which can. between u.s. and south korean military forces and has threatened to respond how do you think how dangerous is the situation on the korean peninsula so you have a. north korea would have been destroyed long ago if they did not have ten or twelve warheads nobody knows whether they have them or not for sure but it's enough for military containment for both south korea and america that's why they're holding the exercise that i know little about the north korean regime but i definitely know that it's very archaic and dangerous it's sort of

a mixture of the middle ages with a pseudo marxist slogans this regime is dangerous for the entire world in my opinion that's the regime we should take all kinds of sanctions against the wall the economy slowly recovering in a state due to the economic growth in asia and especially china how big do you think is the genes for all politics today the third of the work i went to china said to be the locomotive for the world economy this is why there are a lot of things that depend on china politically i think the chinese are aimed at strengthening their economic might they're pursuing a very aggressive economic policy everywhere we say that china is our strategic partner and it is one but in relation to that we should also have powerful armed forces of our own with a powerful economy and be ready for a show of strength to thank you very much simone for talking to us.

the global economy. sign of abating. jewish homeland israel's government stands accused of

blatant racism in passing discriminatory laws. and cranking up the pressure the us administration slaps fresh new sanctions on iran and put several companies suspected of helping support terrorist organizations on an expanded black list. look at the vote rigging scandal in the u.s. the into a murder mystery is the subject of our special report coming. to curtis if you would come forward. and ask the court reporter to swear the witness. mr curtis would you please state your full name for the record. clinton eugene curtis and what is your profession i'm a computer programmer mr curtis are there programs that can be used to secretly fix

elections yes how do you know that the be the case because in october of two thousand i wrote a prototype for president congressman tom feeney at the company i work for a newbie to florida that did just that it would really going to election it would flip the vote fifty one forty nine the whoever you wanted to go to and whichever ray she wanted to went to ever you wanted to win. on november second two thousand and four george bush was more popular easy middle of an unpopular war i was watching the exit polls and looked very clear that john kerry was going to wind. up for duty. and then all of a sudden the numbers that were coming in did not.